If not quite in the time of butterflies, India seems to be living in the time of cockroaches with the hardy insects throwing up surprises on social media as well as under scientists’ glasses.
American novelist Julia Alvarez’s book In The Time of the Butterflies told the story of the Mirabal sisters ("Las Mariposas" or The Butterflies), fictional characters who rose up against the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic in the first half of the 20th century.
Alvarez’s novel was about how ordinary citizens become symbols of systemic resistance.
India is more used to the La Cucaracha (the cockroach) – millions of Hindi movie fans know the tune of the Spanish folk song by that name which Rajesh Roshan “adapted” into the title song from the 1980 Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor-studded Bollywood classic Do Aur Do Paanch.
In more recent times, India’s frustrated, underemployed youth have surprised the government with the cockroach. The message in the Cockroach Janta Party phenomenon is too clear to miss: “You tried to step on us, but we are too resilient to die.”
And now comes news that scientists have created the first and largest DNA barcode reference library for cockroaches in peninsular India, revealing that the region’s cockroach diversity is far richer than previously known.
The study uncovered several undocumented and endemic lineages found nowhere else in the world.
Conducted by researchers from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) Western Regional Centre (Pune) and Southern Regional Centre (Chennai), alongside Prof. Ramkrishna More College (Pune), the project generated over 100 DNA barcodes to improve species identification and resolve long-standing taxonomic gaps.
Importance of cockroaches
While cockroaches are seen purely as household pests, the vast majority of wild species are harmless. As one of the oldest and most diverse insect groups on earth, they play a vital role in maintaining natural ecosystems by decomposing organic matter, recycling nutrients and supporting forest food webs.
The researchers said the new barcode library would aid biodiversity assessment, conservation planning, ecological monitoring, pest identification and future genomic studies.
The study also highlighted possible Gondwanan evolutionary links among endemic Indian cockroach lineages and underscored the need for greater molecular documentation of India’s insect biodiversity.
"The study highlights the growing power of DNA barcoding as a globally recognised tool for uncovering hidden species diversity, resolving taxonomic ambiguities, and documenting poorly known groups such as cockroaches," Dr Dhriti Banerjee, director, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, was quoted as saying in a PIB release.
Cockroach plea in Supreme Court
Beyond the realm of science, support has come from the Supreme Court too for the cockroaches.
"Don't take it so sentimentally," a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi on Monday told a petitioner while refusing to grant an urgent hearing on his plea seeking a probe into allegations of fake advocates and activities associated with the CJP.
Anyone not living under a rock knows that the Cockroach Janta Party started after Chief Justice of India Surya Kant compared “some” unemployed youth and activists to "cockroaches" and "parasites" during a hearing.
The CJI later clarified that his remark was aimed only at those with fake degrees and lamented how the media “misquoted” him, but by then a “rebellion” had been spawned – which the government, of course, seems to insist is a devious foreign-funded ploy to destabilise the country.
Meanwhile, joblessness among India's urban youth stands at 14 per cent, far higher than overall unemployment of about 5 percent according to official data cited in a Reuters report.
There’s no clarity yet if the CJP folks – who have been fuming on social media that the government is fumigating them – would be able to rise up and die like the Mirabal sisters but they are already attracting allies.
At least two political parties have doffed their hat to the CJP and that includes Bengal’s freshly minted opposition party, the TMC. Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee, the top brass of the TMC, are supporting the movement, party MP Derek O’Brien said on Monday.
Even the CPM has come out and condemned the government “crackdown” on the CJP.
On the science front, too, the possibilities are seemingly vast for cockroaches.
According to Dr K.P. Dinesh, the team leader of DNA barcoding studies, ZSI, WRC, Pune, "DNA barcode studies on the cockroaches of peninsular India have opened new avenues for understanding the evolutionary diversification of endemic lineages, revealing possible Gondwanan biogeographic affinities and highlighting how long-term geographic isolation and continental history shaped the fauna of the Indian subcontinent."